Big O Box Set

I jump up and answer the door, but it’s not Gina standing in my doorway.

“Ram, what are you doing here?” I ask as he walks in.

“I’ve been trying to reach you. Congratulations on the part! I want to take you out and celebrate.” He pulls me into his arms and gives me a long, passionate kiss right in front of Evan. I go stiff in his arms. As much as I would’ve loved for Evan to witness this fifteen minutes ago, I don’t want him to see it now. Not when he’s already at an all-time low. “What’s wrong?” Ram says when I don’t kiss him back.

That’s when he sees Evan who is now standing and looking stricken. His mouth is hanging open, eyes wide and full of pain. I want to yell at him to stop looking at me like that, like I’m some horrible monster who stomped on his heart. At least I’m not the one who cheated.

“I thought you said you weren’t dating anyone,” Evan says, his tone still sad but with an edge of accusation at the end.

I step out of Ram’s embrace. “I’m not. We’re just friends.”

Ram’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything to counter what I’ve said. We’ve never made anything official, not even close. I don’t even know how he feels about me.

“Friends don’t usually kiss like that,” Evan says.

“It’s complicated,” I say.

“I guess it is complicated, isn’t it?” Ram says. He sounds pissed, and I tense up, not liking the direction this whole thing is turning. “I mean, I have a lot a friends, but I don’t kiss them. Or fuck them, for that matter. I guess that makes us friends with benefits.”

My mouth drops open and I just stare at him. Where is this coming from, and why the hell would he say that right in front of Evan? I could slap him right now.

Evan looks like he’s about to puke. He holds his stomach and what little color he had left in his pallid skin has gone ghost-white.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says. “I was always afraid you would leave me for an action hero.”

I look at Evan then at Ram, who isn’t moving. In fact, I’m not sure he’s even breathing. He really does look like an action hero. The two men are polar opposite. Ram looks like a Norse god, while Evan looks like he belongs back in the shire with the rest of the Baggins clan.

“Except I didn’t leave,” I say.

“I’ll let you two love-birds hash things out,” Ram says. He starts to leave, but Evan speaks up.

“I was just going. I’m sorry, Cadie,” he says. “I fucked up.”

I don’t say anything. Neither does Ram. Neither of us says anything for an entire minute after Evan leaves. It feels like forever.

Finally, Ram says. “So that’s the guy you’ve been using me to get over?”

His lips curl with disgust, and the words come out like a curse.

He knew. Of course he knew. I’m sure that’s why some of the women he encounters want to hook up with the Bed Shaker. Like they say, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. But it stopped being about Evan a long time ago. Before Ram and I ever slept together.

“I didn’t sleep with you to get over Evan. It wasn’t like that.”

He puts his hands over his face. His words are muffled when he says, “Please don’t say his name around me.”

“Are you actually mad at me right now?” I say, my words laced with poison. “It’s not like we’re a couple. We just sleep together. We’re nothing.”

His expression shifts into pained grimace. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever let come into my house, yet we’re nothing? I spend all my free time with you, and you call us nothing?”

My stomach twists and I feel hollowed out. I had no idea he thought of us as something more.

“But …” I start to say. The rest of my words get caught in my throat.

“But what?” he snaps.

I startle at the harshness of his tone. I’ve hurt him. That’s not pure anger I see in his twisted expression. That’s pain.

I almost give in and tell him everything. I almost tell him I want to be more, that I’ve never felt this way about anyone, that I might … I might even love him. But then I think of that tiny bitch from my audition. I’m going to have to see her every day and know that she’s been with him too. It makes everything he and I have shared in the last few weeks feel less special. I’m just one of the many women in his little black book.

I square my shoulders. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” he demands.

I stand my ground. “It is nothing. We’re nothing.”

His shoulders sag and he looks as stricken as Evan had after witnessing our kiss. “Bullshit,” he says. “You care about me. I know you do. Something happened.” He reaches out and takes my chin, lifting it so I have no choice but to look at him. Tears start to fall despite my efforts to keep them back. He wipes them away with his thumb. The gesture is so sweet, so tender, that I begin to cry harder. His face shifts again and now he looks afraid. “Tell me what happened.”

I feel stupid for even saying anything because Ram and I are not exclusive. It’s dumb for me to even be upset, but I can’t help the way I feel.

“I met one of the women you’ve slept with. Her name is Mara. She’s in the same dance company as me. We’ll be working side by side.” I slide him a glare. “She says she can’t wait to hook up with you again, by the way.”

God, I sound so jealous and ridiculous. I hate myself right now.

Ram looks confused. “I have no idea who that is.”

“Maybe you just don’t remember.”

He gives the glare right back to me. “I’m not a whore, Cadie. I know the names and faces of the women I’ve slept with. I have a reputation, yes, and like most people with those kinds of reputations, they get exaggerated. I guarantee I haven’t slept with as many women as you think I have, and I definitely haven’t slept with anyone named Mara. She sounds like a jealous, conniving bitch who’s trying to rattle you. Clearly it’s working.”

My stomach hurts. I want so badly for his words to be true.

“Have you slept with anyone since you’ve been with me?” I ask. I’m terrified of the answer, but I need to know.

“No,” he says without hesitation. “No fucking way. I haven’t even been able to think about other women since you came into my life.”

With my history with liars, I shouldn’t believe him. But I do.

&nb

sp; He swallows hard. A muscle in his jaw ripples. “Have you?”

I look at him like it’s the most absurd question he could possible ask. “No, of course not.”

He lets out a long sigh and his whole body loses its rigid edges.

“That kind of makes us exclusive, doesn’t it?” he asks shyly. It’s kind of adorable. He even blushes.

“Is that what you want?” I ask.

“Yeah, I do. What about you?”

It’s time to let down my guard. He has a past that I’m not entirely comfortable with, but I won’t let it dictate my future. A future I want him to be a part of.

“More than anything,” I say.

12

Ram

Cadie is mine. All mine. Everything feels lighter somehow. All this worry about her fretting over some other guy is gone. The worry that she wasn’t as into me as I am into her, gone. Now it’s us, together, and I’m looking forward to our future as a couple. I don’t want anyone else. I have no interest in fucking anyone else or getting better at it. All I want is to get better at fucking her, and only her.

“I love you,” I blurt out like an idiot.

I shouldn’t have said that. It’s too soon. It’ll scare her away. She’ll think I’m moving too fast.

She surprises me by saying, “I love you too.” No hesitation, no reluctance. Her words are plain as day and full of emotion. I scoop her up into my arms. I need her right now. I need her so fucking bad.

I don’t take her to the bed because I know that’s the bed they shared, and though I know he’s not a threat, I don’t like the idea of it. I carry her to the couch. The dog jumps up and scrambles away.

This isn’t some gentle, romantic session. No, this is something else. This is animalistic. It’s us taking out all of our issues, expelling our demons. It’s getting rid of everything we have pent up inside. We strip off each other’s clothes in a frenzy. My mouth finds her naked breast and my lips clamp down around her nipple.

“Yes,” she cries, her head falling back as I devour the other breast.